Box Office: 'Jurassic World' Nabs 3rd-Biggest 3rd Weekend, Tops $500M

Jurassic World has crossed $500 million at the domestic
box office. The Chris Pratt/Bryce Dallas Howard-starring dino-sequel from Universal and Legendary became the fastest film to earn $500 million in domestic grosses today, after earning $54.217m in its third weekend of release (-49%) and ending the frame with $500.06m total. It did the deed in just 17 days. It also surpassed the domestic cume ofAvengers: Age of Ultron (which will be at $452m by the end of the weekend) on Friday to become the biggest US grosser of 2015, a record that it may well keep at least for the calendar year of 2015. For the record, and this is a longer conversation for another day, even if Star Wars: The Force Awakens raced to the $450m domestic milestone as fast as Jurassic World, or even if it crossed $500m as fast as Jurassic World crossed $450m, (15 days), it would cross that mark on January 1st. This means that in all likelihoodJurassic World will end the 2015 calendar year as the biggest domestic grosser of the year. Oh, and it has earned $1.238 billion worldwide in around 19 days of global release, including $108m in IMAX alone. It has become the eighth-biggest grossing movie of all time worldwide.

Its third weekend was the third-biggest third weekend on record, behind only the third weekends of The Avengers ($55.6m) and Avatar ($68m). In earning $500 million in just 17 days, Universal/
Comcast Corp.'s $150m Jurassic Park sequel has bested the old record (The Avengers) by six days, outraced Avatar by fifteen days, and out sprinted The Dark Knight (which was in 2D) by 28 days. Titanic needed 98 days, but that was off of a mere $28m weekend and it was a very different time. Jurassic World took as much time to get to half-a-billion dollars as it tookThe Avengers to get to $450m. How quicklyJurassic World will join The Avengers, Titanic, and Avatar in the $550 million and $600m club (with the obvious caveat that inflation-adjusted grosses gives said $600m club 29 members) is merely a matter of speculation. The film hitting/crossing $550m by the end of July 4th weekend seems like a certainty with a leap over the $600m mark possibly happening on the same weekend (July 17th) that
Walt Disney'sAnt-Man debuts.

Presuming decent legs and no inexplicable drops, Jurassic World will likely end its domestic run a bit over/under $650m, putting it second only to Avatarand Titanic on the all-time US grossers chart. If it gets close to the James Cameron boat classic, Universal may keep it in first run theaters (or second run theaters) for ever and ever until it crosses the mark. For the record, a $650m domestic finish would give the film a 3.11x weekend-to-final multiplier, which means longer legs than The Avengers ($207m opening/$623m domestic total)but a comparatively shorter run than The Dark Knight ($158m/$533m).I mention this is point out that the strength of Jurassic World is via its massive opening weekend and then merely having a few weeks of solid staying power. It's a superb performance, but not akin to a James Cameron blockbuster or even something like Guardians of the Galaxy ($94m/$333m).

Heck, 3.11x is the multiplier thatIron Man pulled off back in 2008 ($102 million/$318m)and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest nabbed in 2006 ($135m/$421m). It's just under the 3.22x multiplier that Star Trek earned ($79m/$255m) back in 2009. Point being, and I may go into this in more detail as it winds down, the film still earned the vast majority of its money by the end of its 17th day, as do most movies big and small in this day-and-age. Just like Sam Raimi'sSpider-Man, in today's frontloaded era it's considered leggy merely to not utterly collapse at the end of your second weekend, but we're probably not talking a six-month run here. Jurassic World is an astonishing hit, one that will flirt with being the second biggest movie of all time in America and arguably the third-biggest movie of all-time worldwide. But it is merely the latest in a long line of "in-and-out in six weeks" mega blockbusters adjusted for inflation, the 3D bump, and a relative lack of direct demo competition.

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I've studied the film industry, both academically and informally, and with an emphasis in box office analysis, for 28 years. I have extensively written about all of said subjects for the last ten years. My outlets for film criticism, box office commentary, and film-skewing ...